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Meet Your Neighbor: Miller honored to serve as hospice volunteer

Sheri Trusty, Correspondent
Published 8:08 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2017

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Carol Miller was uncomfortable around serious illness for years before she watched ProMedica Hospice-Clyde care for her dying parents. Now, Miller is a hospice volunteer who considers it a privilege to visit patients during one of the most intimate times of their life.(Photo: Sheri Trusty/Correspondent)Buy Photo

FREMONT - Throughout much of her adult life, Carol Miller of Fremont was uncomfortable around serious illness. She didn’t like being around people who were sick, and she rarely visited nursing homes. But that changed dramatically after she watched staff members and volunteers from ProMedica Hospice-Clyde care for her parents during their final days. Today, Miller is a hospice volunteer who counts it a joy and a privilege to sit with people who are dying.

“Hospice was only with my father three days before he died. Three years later, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I said I know what I’m doing — I’m calling hospice,” Miller said. “They took care of her five months before she died. That’s when I realized I wanted to volunteer for hospice.”

Miller has been a ProMedica Hospice volunteer since retiring as a Sacred Heart School teacher 10 years ago. She visits patients at all stages of hospice care, which can include patients who are days or months away from death, and she is on the organization’s Vigil Team, who sit with patients who are actively dying.

“That’s the thing I like — patient contact,” Miller said. “People ask me all the time how I do this. I didn’t think I could either when I was younger, but it’s just so rewarding.”

Miller’s visits with patients provide someone unattached to the stress of their situation to talk with, and it can give family members the chance to step away for a while and take a break. One of her first patients was a young woman who was on hospice for two years before she died, and another early patient was a 100-year-old former teacher who wanted someone to read to her.

“I had never met anybody 100 years old before. It was perfect for me, because my favorite part of teaching was reading to my students,” Miller said. “She wanted me to read Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think we got through two and a half books before she died.”

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ProMedica Hospice-Clyde is housed in The Eliza Ramsay Home. The organization offers hospice, home health and bereavement services.(Photo: Sheri Trusty/Correspondent)

Christina Sloan, the Volunteer Manager for ProMedica Hospice-Clyde, said the organization is in need of more volunteers like Miller who will provide companionship for patients or respite breaks for their family members.

But there are other ways to help that don’t involve sitting with patients. Sloan said she is also in need of volunteers who will join the Hospice Choir, which sings to patients in their homes and in nursing homes, and she needs volunteers to provide pet therapy by visiting patients with their certified therapy animals.

Of all the volunteer choices she has, Miller prefers to sit with patients. There, she experiences some of the most tender moments in a person’s life. She recalled one young patient who didn’t want her family present when she died, but when death drew near, her fiancée gave her children permission to visit their mother.

“He told them they could see her, but he said they couldn’t grab her hand,” she said. “He told them, ‘One hand is holding onto Jesus. If you hold the other one, she won’t know which way to go.’”

When Miller is asked how she handles dealing with death so often, she says she understands it is just part of the journey of life.

“I know they’re going to another place and they’re at peace,” she said.

And being present at that transition is something she treasures.

“I always think — what a privilege. The family doesn’t know me, but it’s such an intimate time in their life. They allow me to come and be with their loved one,” she said. “The people I get to meet, they teach me about living and dying and courage.”

And in the process, she sees the beautiful side of death.

“One thing I read years ago was this: When you are with someone who is dying, you are in the very presence of God,” she said. “What a privilege to be able to be there.”